People used to retire at 60 or 65 and then, from the pension providers' viewpoint, conveniently died shortly afterwards. Now they are living longer and longer and for many, nearly a third of their lives will be lived post retirement. For some this will be a golden age – good health, supportive family, an ample retirement income – but for others there will be loneliness, a gradual loss of mental faculties, long term physical ill-health and a struggle to survive. Most will remain in their own houses but others will have moved to retirement villages or care homes.

So how do we slow the decline of mental health, find companionship and keep our spirits up? One answer is via community improvised theatre. The Curtain Up Players started life as a group for the over 50s at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield. We would create two or three plays a year and then perform at the theatre and in village halls and lunch clubs. But last year the group was told it no longer fitted in with the theatre's development programme. Despite a vigorous campaign to change this, we were turfed out. Luckily the Proper Job Theatre Company offered its rehearsal room for a peppercorn rent and Kirklees council gave us a small grant to cover basic costs.

At the moment we are creating a play for a lunch club called The Welcome Home Party. It is set in a village in May 1945, while people are welcoming home the troops. We meet for two hours every Thursday morning and over the last three weeks have developed our characters. As always we do not have a script, but have some roughly worked-out scenes around which people improvise. This keeps people mentally agile, and develops and maintains their creativity and spontaneity, so important to the art of ageing.

As one cast member remarked: "The group stretches my ability to communicate with people, which when you are on your own you forget."It also means that there are no lines to learn. In this play the audience will be intermingled with the actors as villagers and therefore, even more than normal, this will keep the cast on their toes.

The group, which has 13 members, has developed a large amount of social capital over five years. We are all very different, but there is true friendship between us and we know the rest of the group are there to provide support, no matter what life throws at us. We have supported people though three deaths, including one of a cast member. We have helped people to live well with serious illnesses and isolation, keeping them out of hospital. We have become a small supportive community; as another member said: "Since I first joined the group I don't think there's been a meeting without laughter and I always leave feeling great." In our performances at lunch clubs and care homes we have breathed a bit of life into people's days.

As the numbers of older people continue to grow and as central and local government support dries up, older people will need to support one another and pool their resources if they are to live full and interesting lives after retirement. The final word goes to another member of the cast: "When many are concerned with what to do with the growing number of elderly [people] we need to be there in the thick of it voicing our opinions and ideas. Our group is an excellent way of being there."